She then ordered her
travelling chest to be opened, and the liqueurs, conserves, and pastry,
to be displayed by the side of Mrs. Mellicent's sallads, oat-cake, and
metheglin, inviting her, in a most gracious manner, to partake of the
pilgrim's wallet. But Mrs. Mellicent had the same antipathy to court
delicacies which Lady Bellingham had to country fare; and, with the
independent spirit of a Cincinnatus, gravely preferring "a radish and an
egg," continued to eat them leisurely with a satisfaction derived from a
consideration that they were not purchased by any sacrifice of
integrity. She secretly pondered on the base propensities which the
rebel cause engendered, when even a woman of rank, who had known better
manners, was so vitiated by the company she had lately kept, as to
esteem respectable, uncomplaining poverty a fair object of contempt.
It would have been difficult even for modern volubility to have supplied
conversation in a group thus circumstanced; but two hundred years ago
long intervals of silence in a country-party were not extraordinary.
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